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LETTER 



RUFUS F. ANDREWS. 

Lately Surveyor of the Port of New York, -■- ir,.,^, 



THUIILOW WEED, 



Lately Editor of the Albany Evening Journal, 



NEW YORK: 
1864. 






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LETTER 

OF 

RUFUS F. ANDREWS, 

LATELY SraVEYOll OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK, 

TO 

THURLOW WEED, 

LATELY EDITOR OF THE ALBANY EVENING JOURNAL. 



New Yo-rk, Decemher lOth, 1864. 
To Mr. Thurlow Weed : 

The smoke of conflict having cleared away, the 
political horizon being free from cloud or threaten- 
ing of storm, the last hope of traitors being dissi- 
pated by the re-election of Abraham Lincoln, and 
victory perching upon every war-banner of the 
Union, it is not inappropriate that I should now 
attend to the settlement of a long-standing account 
between us. While there was danger that to 
avenge personal wrongs might damage the cause of 
Republican government and free institutions, I held 
my peace and submitted in silence to your dastardly 
attacks. Now that the efforts of Union men have 



been crowned witli success, I propose to set myself 
right in the public estimation as against your re- 
peated and studied calumnies, and, stripping your 
shoulders of the vaunted patriotism beneath which 
you have so long and so successfully plied the arts 
of demagogue, hypocrite, and ingrate, " give you to 
posterity, not as a pattern to imitate, but as an 
example to deter." 

For years you have waxed great; — your power 
has been as absolute within your sphere as that of 
the Khan of Tartary in his dominions ; your will 
has been law, your frown a terror, and your favor a 
fortune to your followers and worshippers. They 
have regarded you with mingled awe and reverence, 
and accepted your teachings with the same blind 
credulity that characterized the devotion of the 
" bold believers" and " fire-eyed disputants" of the 
famed Mokanna. Be mine the task to expose your 
rank features, and show you unveiled to your dupes. 
Then let them and the world 

" * * judge, if sin with all its power to blur, 
Can add one vice to the foul thing you are." 

Our acquaintance commenced in the year 1857-8. 
I was then a young man in the pursuit of my avo- 
cation as a lawyer in this city, and you the editor 
and publisher of an influential public journal in 
the Capital of the State. I was unknown beyond 
the circles of the metropolis ; your name was as 
familiar throughout the land as house-breaking to 
a burglar or perjury to a dicer. I went to Albany 
on professional business, and had the misfortune to 
make your acquaintance. You sought and received 
an introduction to me. I had known you previous- 
ly under various designations, and my curiosity Avas 
pixjued to be brought into familiar intercourse with 



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a person who bore the titles of " the Old Man," " the 
Lucifer of the Lobby," " Fagin the Jew," &c. I 
had heard you credited with capacity to arrest the 
wheels of State legislation, and to set them in 
motion, to convert public bills into private benefac- 
tions, to exalt and enrich your proteges, and debase 
and impoverish your enemies. I was informed you 
had at least one agent in each school district of the 
State whom you owned, and who knew nothing 
among men save Thurlow Weed and what he de- 
sired ; that so absolute was your mastery over 
these bondmen that with them black was white, 
and crime only a reduced form of goodness, if you 
so adjudged ; that professing a certain political 
faith, they would vote for the candidate of the op- 
position, whenever '■'■ the Old Man " wanted a fresh 
victim or a new favorite. Do you wonder that a 
young man, ambitious to be something more than 
drift-wood in the political current, felt himself 
honored by your condescension in talking with him 
of public men and measures as though you really 
intended consulting his opinions ? I acknowledge 
the snare was artfully laid, and that I was ignorant 
enough of your true character to be impressed favor- 
ably by your apparent sincerity. 

In the same year that you were introduced to me, 
I was employed professionally to attend before the 
Senate Committee of Cities and Villages to advo- 
cate the passage of various Railroad Charters in the 
City of New York. You ivere then a resident of 
Albany. The charters were granted to certain 
named incorporators, and in every one of them you 
had a direct pecuniary interest, at the time of the 
passage of the Act, although your name did not ap- 
pear in any of the grants as a Corporator. " The 



Old Man" was taken care of in every instance where 
the necessary two-thirds vote was secured ! Cu- 
rious, is it not, Mr. Weed ? Strange, hut true. 
Can you account for it. Sir ? Will you dare 
deny it ? 

Time wore on, and you and I were thruwn a great 
deal together in politics. The American party lived 
its hour, and after its demise I joined my lot with 
the Kepuhlicans. The presidential campaign of 
1860 found mt an earnest worker for the election of 
Mr. Lincoln, and when the rehellion hroke out, and 
ever since, I devoted all my energies to the support 
of the government. 

In the fall of 1862 you hegan to exhibit impa- 
tience with the President, and disaffection towards 
your old party associates. It was bruited about 
that you were going to join what was left of the 
democratic party, and were paving your way for ad- 
mission to the honors of that communion by your 
abuse of the Administration and its friends. Ac- 
cording to your expressed views, nothing was right. 
In civil and in military life everything was wrong. 
The policy of the Government was condemned by 
you in unmeasured terms. The principles of liberty 
were sneeringly alluded to hy you as weak devices of 
fanatics and abolitionists. The appointments to 
office were " not fit to be made." Wisdom had fled 
from the rest of mankind, and taken up her solitary 
abode with you ! 

A Governor for New York in the place of the 
Hon. E. D. Morgan, who had served two terms 
with great usefulness to the State, and equal credit 
to himself, had to be elected. The State Conven- 
tion that assembled in that year, following the 
popular heart, nominated for the Executive office 
that pure man and true patriot, the estimable and 



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deeply lamented Brigadier General James S. Wads- 
worth. You, following your own grovelling in- 
stincts, fell out with the representatives of the 
Union party. Finding you could not rule you de- 
termined to ruin, and joined your exertions to those 
opposed to the Union candidate. Your share in 
procuring the defeat of a man the latchet of whose 
shoes you were not worthy to unloose, is thoroughly 
understood. The wages of your treachery have 
been paid you. Why don't you emulate the last 
virtue of Judas Iscariot, and hang yourself ? 

In January, 1863, you dissolved your pro- 
]>rietary connection with the Albany Evening 
Journal, and proclaimed divorce between your- 
self and the Union Eepublican party. In your 
own language, you were " of no account with the 
President," and your haughty spirit could not brook 
further disparagement. 

" Ah me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn. 
To think how modest worth neglected lies. " 

The world however went on as usual. No convul- 
sion of nature countersigned the political phenome- 
non. Without a sigh or groan of anguish, or funeral 
cortege, you were allowed to go down among the 
dead men. Appropriate inscriptions were prepared 
for your tomb-stone. " Felo-de-se," was provided 
by yourself ; " He feathered his nest," was sug- 
gested by a newspaper contemporary, and a London 
Journal furnished this : " A mortified caucus poli- 
tician, prevented by the greatness of the crisis from 
wielding his power as a wire-puller." Why did 
you not remain in your grave ? Why spite the 
race by exhuming your useless remains ? You had 
ceased to be useful as an Editor and, owing to that 
" sprained wrist" of yours, could not be of service 
as a soldier. 

2* 



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To return to my cause of quarrel with you. In 
July of 1861, I was appointed Surveyor of the Port 
of New York. At that very time you were in- 
triguing for the place upon behalf of Mr. Abram 
Wakeman, lately Postmaster of this city. You 
were foiled in your purpose, and gave vent to your 
ill-concealed vexation in splenetic remarks indica- 
tive of decaying mental powers. You found that 
the weapons you had so long wielded were too 
heavy for your years, and you adroitly resorted to 
the Borgian policy of secret craft. Open and hon- 
orable warfare had never been a means of success 
with you. You wanted tlie place for your favorite, 
so that you might be the power behind the throne ; 
baffled in securing it, you resorted to your never- 
failing strategy of deceit. You called on me, and 
congratulated me. You called again and again. 
You fawned, and smiled, and wept, like the 
crocodile you are. You moved my sympathies. 
"The old man" who had so long swayed destiny 
and created dynasty was a suppliant to me. 
His petitions, too, were so unselfish ; he wanted 
place only for "deserving persons," "good men," 
&c. I yielded to your entreaties, and gave to you 
for your friends a large proportion of the best places 
in my gift. You were " very grateful !" 

Time rolled on. In the dark days of '63, when 
Treason was so defiant, you were enacting the roll 
of the melancholy Jacques, wringing your hands 
and uttering ^ereniads of the dolefulest strain. 
You were especiall/ severe in your denunciations of 
the President, ^7hon you proclaimed an "old Im- 
becile," his conducv of the war a failure, and his ad- 
vising ministers a corrupt and inefficient cabal. You 
should have stopped here. You said enough to 



9 

prove your contempt for the rulers of the Kepublic, 
and decency required that your attacks should be 
restricted to persons of your own sex. This did 
not sufficiently gratify your morbid ai)i!etite, and in 
the spring of 1863, in a public hotel of the city of 
New York, you announced to an indiscriminate au- 
dience that the wife of the President of the Unired 
States was guilty of treasonable conduct, and that 
by order of the Secretary of War that lady had 
been banished the Capital ; an order which you de- 
clared was too long d(d=iyed ! This occurred in njy 
hearing, and I promptly denied the statement, and 
braude;! it as the invention of malicious mendacity. 
That same evening Mrs. Lincoln arrived in New 
York. I called to pay her my accustomed respects, 
and ex])i-essed to her my surprise at hearing she had 
been ordered to leave VVashington, and asked her 
what the facts were. Her astonishment was onlv 
equalled by her proper indignation. She required 
me to give my authority for the statement of her 
alleged expulsion, and I related to her the occur- 
rence as it transpired at the hotel. Subsequently 
you went to Washington, and sued for and received 
pardon for your gross oifence ; but you never 
forgave me for my interposition upon behalf of a 
slandered woman. lu my zeal to save the first 
American lady from as[)er.sion, I incurred the wrath 
of her defimer, and from that hour how to destroy 
me became his chief ambition. Thenceforward 
your hatred to me had no boundary but your ca- 
pacity for harm. 

Time still wore on. The presidential campaign 
of 1864 was at hand. The National Convention 
met at Baltimore. I was a delegate to' it in spite 
of your efforts to the contrary. You were a dele- 



10 



gate to its lobby, tbat third bouse of whose com- 
mittee of Ways and Means you have so long been 
chairman ! To your chagrin, Mr. Lincoln was re- 
nominated. Your rage, like a secret fire in the 
bones, consumed you, and unless you had relief, 
there was danger you would become " Krook," the 
2d, and furnish science with another illustration 
of spontaneous combustion. You rushed into 
print, and over the cabalistic " T. W." signature, 
launched forth several of those peculiar diatribes 
which have made your last decade so notorious. In 
the letter published in the Albany Evening Journal 
of June 11, 1864, you say, "Notwithstanding all 
" this, a formidable and organized body of ultra 
" abolitionists, '■ loyal leaguers,' and radical dema- 
" gogues appeared at Baltimore, for the purpose, as 
" they avowed, of procuring the nomination of Mr. 
" Dickinson for Vice-President, that Mr. Seward 
"might be excluded from the Cabinet. In this 
" miserable intrigue the ultraists of Massachusetts 
" cuddled with the slime of New York.'"' 

Now, Mr. Weed, ivlio avowed the purpose of his 
appearance as a Delegate at Baltimore to be to pro- 
cure the nomination of Mr. Dickinson for Vice- 
President that Mr. Seward might be excluded from 
the Cabinet ? Cite mo a single instance if you 
can in support of your slander. Who represented 
the ultraists of Massachusetts," and ivlio " the 
slime of New York, in this miserable intrigue .^" 
Grlve us their names, if they ever had existence, out- 
side of your disordered and falsifying brain. Come, 
Sir, the game of the Artfid Dodger will not serve 
the purpose. In this same letter you say that, " At 
" Baltimore, as at Syracuse, Mr. Lincoln's Sui-veyor 
" of the port of New York, was among the most 



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" unscrupulous traducers of Mr. Lincoln's Secretary 
"of State." This is suflficiently explicit for the 
purpose of allegation or proof or denial. This 
is a clear specification of a clear charge, and II 
meet it by pronouncing it a deliberately invented 
lie uttered by an unscrupulous old liar ! That at 
any time or place I ever spoke a disrespectful word 
of Mr. Seward, is a falsehood made out of whole 
cloth ; false alike in its warp and woof; the coin- 
age of a wretch who is by trade a liar, and whose 
practice has rendered him an expert in liis calling. 
I mean my answer to be as explicit as your libel. 

In this connection I gratify my sense of venera- 
tion for worth and ability, by adding that none of 
his countrymen admires the character and genius of 
this eminent American more than 1. Mr. Seward 
is a statesman of whom the nation may be justly 
proud. 

Not content with the foregoing libel upon me, 
you must again dip your quill in gall, and drag my 
name into your controversy with a gentleman upon 
whose " gaberdine you have spit." In your letter 
which appeared in the Albany Evening Journal, of 
June 25, 1864, you say, referring to the suit brought 
by tlie Hon. George Opdyke against you for a libel, 
" while appealing to the Ihavs of his country, civil and 
'■'■ criminal, Mr. Opdyke can, if he pleases, enlarge 
" the field of inquiry, so as to embrace the alleged 
" sale of the office of Surveyor of the port of New 
" York for the moderate sum of $10,000." This is 
not as well defined as the charge in j'our letter of 
June 11, 1864, but the fault of insufficiently stating 
what you mean, does not attach to me, and you must 
be presumed to lack confidence in an averment which 
is made by inuendo. Nevertheless, I will not evade 



12 



the inquiry. Tell me now, Sir, tell the public, wlio 
alleges that I paid to Mr. Opdyke or to any one, 
$10,000 or any sum as purchase money for the office 
of Surveyor of the Port of New York. Give us 
the name of the alleger. What are his in- 
itial letters ? Are they more than two ? Are 
they not " T. W."? I have been subpoenaed as a 
witness in the case of Opdyke vs. Weed, and am 
happy in the belief that you are to be gratified on 
this point of the " alleged sale," whenever the trial 
of that cause shall take place. Now, Mr. Weed, 
are you not ashamed ? No, I beg the pardon of 
shame ; you are an utter stranger to its honorable 
blush ! 

To proceed : I had beaten you and your allies and 
myrmidons in the State Conventions of May and 
September, 1864. These defeats sat like a nightmare 
upon you. There was danger that the President 
might not suppose you as powerful as you had repre- 
sented yourself, and that he would discover in what 
estimation the people West of Cayuga Bridge held 
you. This, you reasoned with yourself, must be 
prevented at all hazards, and as a ineans to prevent 
it, I must be further traduced by you. Mr. Lin- 
coln's ear must be kept filled with complaints 
against '• the Surveyor," and with recitals of " the 
disorganizing schemes of Andrews." I had been 
appointed to settle a difficulty, and I must be re- 
moved " to harmonize the party in New York." 
Besides, said one of your friends, "Mr. Weed will 
" most certainly oppose the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
" if Andrews is retained. This, I assure you, Mr. 
" President, is the ultimatum of Weed." What a 
display of lofty patriotism ! judge the world of its ex- 
cellent quality ! What would be said of the character 
for virtue of a woman who sacrificed her own chastity 



13 



because her liusband smiled upon a mistress ? and 
what shall be said of the loyalty and love of country 
of a man who made it the condition of supporting 
the Union nomine^^s that a blameless public servant 
should be ousted from ofiice, his only offence being 
that he vindicated a woman from the slanders of a 
common scold ! 

Your conduct in this matter is not wholly with- 
out example. John the Baptist remonstrated with 
Herodias upon the enormity of her connection with 
the Tetrarch, and for his faithful reproof of her 
crime lost his head, upon the demand of Herodias' 
daughter whose dancing so pleased Herod that he 
promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she 
would ask ; " And she, being before instructed of 
^' her another, said, Give me here John the Baptist's 
" head in a cliarger. Jjid the King was sorry ; 
" nevertheless for the oath's sake, he commanded it 
" to be given her. And he sent, and beheaded 
'' John, And his head was brought in a cliarger, and 
^' given to the damsel ; and she brought it to her 
'' mother." Is not the analogy complete ? Herodias 
and Weed ! John, the Baptist, and Andrews, the 
Surveyor ! The King, and . But I forbear. 

In September, 1864, I was dismissed from office 
upon your procurement, without any charge of dis- 
loyalty, incapacity or dishonesty marring the fair 
nicord of my oiheial career, I had already contribu- 
ted very largely to the expenses of the fall campaign 
in this and other states, and I affirm I spent more 
of my own money, honestly acquired, for party and 
political pur]3oses during the three years I held a 
political office, than you, Thurlow Weed, have spent 
of your own mofiey, honestly acqtiired, in your whole 
life, for like purposes. 

I was dismissed, and you triumphed. In that 



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triumph you had your revenge. Eelieved of office, 
and not imputing Mame to the President, I devoted 
my time, money, and efforts to securing his re-elec- 
tion to 'the office which he adorns, and no man in 
all the land hails his triumph with more solid grati- 
fication than I. In the victory of the Union party 
over its avowed enemies and pretended friends I 
had a triumph the joy of which throws into the 
shade your satisfaction at my sacrifice. You are 
welcome to wear the laurels which have sprouted 
from the hot-bed of your craft and dishonor. 

In parting with this subject let me recommend 
you to penitence for your past misdeeds. You are an 
old man, and should be in course of preparation for the 
change which in process of time will soon be upon 
you. Cease your stretching out after the things of 
earth. Be majestic in your decay. You need not 
wear sackcloth or sit in ashes, but you must curb 
the lawlessness of avarice, and abandon the im})iety 
of rage. Try to become a Christian. Repent of 
your manifold sins while there is yet time, and take 
home to yourself the solemn warning of Junius to a 
moribund politician of his day : " You are now in 
" the last act of life. Can gray hairs make folly 
" venerable ? and is there no period to be reserved for 
" meditation and retirement ? For shame, my Lord ! 
" Let it not be recorded of you that the latest rao- 
" ments of your life were dedicated to the same un- 
" worthy pursuits, the same busy agitations in 
" which your manhood was exhausted. Consider 
" that although you cannot disgrace your former 
" life, you are violating the character of age and ex- 
" posing the impotent imbecility after you have lost 
" the vigor of the passions." 

RuFus F. Andp.ews, 
Lately Surveyor of the Port of 
Neio York, 



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